


Fading Echoes

by rosecake



Category: DC Cinematic Universe, Suicide Squad (2016)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Ghosts, Post-Canon, Spirits, background June/Rick, background Tatsu/Maseo, soultaker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-18 05:14:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11284419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosecake/pseuds/rosecake
Summary: Something has been wrong with her sword ever since they defeated the Enchantress.





	Fading Echoes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VampirePaladin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VampirePaladin/gifts).



The spirits residing in Tatsu's sword made themselves heard in various ways. Some she heard with her ears as if they were still alive and standing right next to her, the interaction so normal that that she sometimes mistook a ghost's voice for a stranger trying to speak to her from right outside her field of vision. Some she heard directly in her mind, in a way that was once disorienting but had long since become familiar. Some of the spirits were beyond words, usually the older ones, taken by the sword long before she took custody of it. Still, she felt and understood them through some sixth sense she didn't have a name for, the faded echoes of their long-gone voices pouring out of the blade and into her.

She was used to the spirits, but she still suspected her mind was playing tricks on her when she first heard the Enchantress screaming to make herself heard over the teeming mass of souls trapped in the sword. The sword took the souls of people she killed with it, and she hadn't been the one to kill the witch. Rick had crushed her heart with his bare hands, and Soultaker should have been denied a victim.

However, despite how she might appear to others, Tatsu was not a woman prone to madness or delusion. And very soon the Enchantress was loud enough to be undeniable.

She was a storm, a raging typhoon of rage that still thrummed through Tatsu's body even when the Soultaker was shut way in a box underneath her bed. The feeling was even worse when she had the sword in her hands, the Enchantress's screams rising to such a fevered pitch that it assaulted senses Tatsu had never before realized she had. Even her husband, who's voice had always been foremost in her mind and heart, was drowned out by the din.

The screaming was too shapeless to be any human language, but Tatsu understood the meaning of it anyway: "Let me out!"

Nothing good ever came of engaging spirits in their tantrums, but there was only so much Tatsu could take.

"I don't even understand why you were trapped in the first place," said Tatsu. "What makes you think I have the power to release you?"

"It was that mad wretch," said the Enchantress. There was nothing human in her voice, none of the seductive softness she had sometimes used in life. "She cut into my heart, fractured me."

"How unfortunate for you," said Tatsu.

Harley had cut her open, and possibly even nicked her heart in the process. In her experience, nothing but a lethal strike had ever been enough for Soultaker to claim a victim's soul, but she'd never encountered anything like the Enchantress or her brother before. The cut must have been enough to claim at least a part of her.

Tatsu was glad Rick had stopped her from cutting off the witch's head. Even a fractured piece of her her was stronger than any other spirit Tatsu had ever encountered, and trying to contain the whole of her might have shattered the blade.

"Release me!" said the Enchantress. It was a command, not a request, and when Tatsu did not respond she tried again with a softer voice. "Release me, Katana. You have seen my strength, have you not? I'm sure you can feel it even now. When I am whole again, I will be able to give you anything your heart desires."

Whatever small part of the Enchantress was trapped inside Soultaker still had her powers of illusion. Tatsu could see herself, her husband, her children, all of them alive and whole and smiling brightly.

Tatsu let herself wallow in it, but only for a minute. She had the same dream every night, after all, and had to face the harshness of reality ever morning. Her grief was a constant companion, one that had not left her since the night her family had been murdered, and it was a too deeply imbedded part of her to be used against her by the likes of the Enchantress.

Besides, Tatsu had experience with spirits, far too much to be tempted by an empty promise.

"Do you really think I'm going to be moved by an offer we both know is false? Raising the dead is beyond anyone's power. You couldn't have done it even when you were alive and whole."

"You haven't seen even a fraction of my abilities," said the Enchantress, anger and offense straining her voice even as she tried to lull Tatsu into temptation. "Even in this reduced state, I can still give you your family back."

"No," said Tatsu.

In the end, whether it was really within the Enchantress's power to raise the dead or not mattered very little. The Soultaker _took_ , and what it took it did not give back again. Tatsu could wield it, trap spirits with it, but no amount of trying on her part had ever convinced the sword to give anything up.

Tatsu held the sword in her hands, waiting patiently for the witch's rage at being denied to wind itself down, but the Enchantress's fury was endless. Eventually she couldn't take it anymore and put the sword back in the box under her bed. She tried to sleep, but the Enchantress's spirit was loud enough to keep her awake, never once quieting. It might have been easier to take if Tatsu had left, put some physical distance between herself and Soultaker, but she couldn't convince herself to do it. Soultaker had her husband's soul trapped within it, the very last thing that remained of the family she'd once had, and she had not been more than an arm's length away from it since their deaths. The Enchantress's rage, as intimidating as it may be, was not enough to change that.

In the morning the Enchantress tried seduction again, her rage having gotten her nowhere.

"How much can you really do with one sword, Tatsu? How much do you really think you can accomplish, running around calling yourself Katana, claiming you serve justice when you're really at the beck and call of one of the worst criminals around? At the end of the day you really haven't managed much, have you? Just a handful of dead gangsters, immediately replaced once they were gone."

At this point her kill count was well into the thousands, although it hardly mattered. Tatsu refused to rise to the bait and remained silent.

"You may not believe I can grant life, Tatsu, but surely even you can admit that I have the power to grant death to your enemies. No more sulking in the shadows, knocking off a few thieves here, a few murderers there. If you free me they could all be dead in a day. I can give you your revenge, a river of blood, and the world will be a better place for it."

She was right, that was something Tatsu believed she could grant. Blood, rage, and ruin, all of those things were well within the Enchantress's domain. Tatsu could see it all play out in her mind's eye, and she wasn't sure if it was her own imagination or the witch putting visions in her head. Either way, the thought of it was pleasing, and the fact that she found it so easily believable made it a more seductive offer than the the thought of resurrecting her family. Her revenge would be complete, justice would be done, and then she could be at peace.

Nothing in life was ever that easy, though.

"I've gotten far enough on my own," said Tatsu. "I will manage a way to finish it on my own as well."

She watched the sword, laid out in front of her, as the Enchantress's rage at being denied again spiraled out from it. The primal emotion washed over her like waves, so loud and violent that it was hard to believe that the sword was solid and whole in front of her and not breaking with the force of it. It felt like it should crack open, and Tatsu should crack open along with it.

Still, even as the ghost mists swirled around, the sword itself did not move. Tatsu's heart beat on like it always did, even as the Enchantress threatened to rip apart from the inside. She had a headache from the noise and lack of sleep, but that was it. The Enchantress was dead, a spirit, with no power over the physical world. She could make herself heard, but she could do no more than that.

"I am not some crawling worm like your husband, content to be trapped in this sword forever," snarled the Enchantress. "You are going to pay for your arrogance when I am free! I am going to destroy everyone and everything you ever loved, and you will be powerless to stop it, you worthless wretch."

"You're too late," said Tatsu. "That already happened."

The Enchantress's only response after that was incoherent rage.

*****

Tatsu was a master of secrecy, and even in those rare instances when secrecy was not required by her lifestyle she still preferred to slink around in the shadows. She felt safer in them. And even with all the security Rick installed, it wouldn't be difficult for her to slip into June's apartment without June realizing it, at least not until Tatsu was standing right in front of her.

June Moone had been through a lot over the past few months, though, so instead Tatsu rang the doorbell like a civilized person. June answered quickly, a smile on her face as she greeted Tatsu.

"Oh, are you looking for Rick?" she asked, and her smile dimmed. "Is something wrong?"

"Everything's fine," said Tatsu. She wasn't the type to make regular social calls, and she should have realized June would think she was there for a mission. "I just wanted to check up on you."

That was mostly the truth, even if she did not mention that exact reason why. The Enchantress still wailed from her prison inside the sword, her voice building to new heights in the presence of her former host. If a part of her still lived on in the sword, could a part of her still live on in June? Some small aspect that might one day free itself and become something greater?

June's smile returned, though, as soon as it was clear that Tatsu wasn't there on squad business. Tatsu had only ever known her as frantic, nervous woman, but that aspect of her personality had subsided after the Enchantress had been exorcised from her. She seemed calm, and that calmness was undisturbed by the last remnants of the Enchantress wailing for her blood only a few feet away.

If the Enchantress had any pull left in the physical world, any last remaining part of herself she could call out to and free herself with, Tatsu was sure that June would have felt it.

But June was fine. Tatsu took the glass June offered her, smiling softly as June spoke to her. She could still hear the Enchantress screaming, could still feel the red waves of her anger, but now Tatsu clearly recognized it for what it was: impotent rage.

"There's nothing of you left in her, witch," said Tatsu once she was back in her own apartment. "The only part of you left is the part of you that's trapped, and you are going to be trapped forever."

And after that Tatsu had no reason to ever speak to her again.

*****

It took time for the Enchantress to wear herself out, but eventually her cries grew hoarse and dim. She was a strong spirit, but still just a spirit, and eventually she would be no louder or more demanding than any of the others. Tatsu was used to the noise they made, and over time she'd learned to tune out the ones she didn't care to hear from.

She laid in bed, curled around the sword and waiting for sleep to come to her, when above the dimmed chorus of ghosts a more familiar voice rose. It was faint but still understandable, and it spoke directly to her heart.

"Maseo?"

"I'm here," he said. "I'll always be here."

There would always be a part of him within the sword. Nothing could change that, not even the Enchantress, and as hard as it was to bear it still also managed to bring her some comfort. Whatever else may happen, she would never be truly alone. The Enchantress was still too loud, too overbearing, but she was fading, and things were going back to normal. She could hear her husband again, and it was enough to let her slip into the first deep sleep she'd had in months.


End file.
